Volunteers with the Lubbock Democratic Headquarters came across an unsettling surprise Wednesday morning when they found defaced campaign signs scattered in front of the office, with disturbing and derogatory remarks and racial slurs written across them. 

“It was not a pretty sight to tell you the truth,” said Leo Flores, who was the first to see the signs when he came into the office at 10:30 Wednesday morning. “We thought, now that it’s 2016, we shouldn’t have these problems anymore, because we’re better than this, or we should be better than this.” 

It is unknown who left the campaign signs there, but organizers say they will be filing a police report on the incident.

They say while they do not feel threatened by what happened, the racial slurs written across the signs directed towards the Hispanic and African American communities are what disturbs and frustrates them the most. 

“It’s also about not going back to the sixties, because I remember the sixties, and this is similar to what happened back then,” said Gilbert Flores, Chairman of the Tejano Democrats of Lubbock. “The best message I can give our people especially from Lubbock, Texas, which is west Texas at its strongest, is we are all brothers and sisters.” 
 
Volunteers say that the incident only motivates them to campaign more. 
 
“It’s just going to make us fight harder, so more power to you, you’ve just made me more angry and I’m going to fight even harder,” said Christina, the Vice Chair of Tejano Democrats of Lubbock. 
 
“And to those people who did those to our signs, I got a message for you, we got some more signs and we’re going to put them up,” said Flores.
 
Stuart Williams, the coordinator for West Texas for Hillary and vice chair of the Lubbock Democratic party, says acts like these help neither party represent themselves well. 
 
“This doesn’t do anything for Hillary Clinton, it doesn’t do anything for Donald Trump, it cheapens Lubbock, Texas, it cheapens what we’re trying to do, and it cheapens America.
 
Go to the republican headquarters. Volunteer, get involved, help get out the vote. This is not what you need. You need to put your energies into something positive.” 
 
The volunteers say that this is the first incident of its kind that they’ve been made aware of this election season, but say that they do recall similar acts from the 2008 and 2012 election years.